Le Pen vs. Le Pen over abortion

France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen has clashed over abortion rights with her high-profile niece, Marion Maréchal Le Pen, who is an MP in the southern Vaucluse department.

Maréchal Le Pen said France should end “the full and unlimited reimbursement of abortion”. The National Front leader, however, said: “The scope for granting an abortion and being reimbursed is not in my programme.”

As reported by The Guardian, some commentators accused the Le Pens of “cynical role playing”, manufacturing their December 6 row in order to cast a wider electoral net from the centre to the traditionalist Catholic hard-Right.

This is not the first time Maréchal Le Pen, a rising star of the far-Right who is popular with southern hard-Right Catholics, has irked her aunt.

In July, Ms Le Pen warned her photogenic niece not to try and hog the limelight, saying: “She’s sometimes a bit rigid and must develop a team spirit.”

France’s left-wing weekly Nouvel Observateur accused the Le Pens of starting a phoney row for political gain. The magazine said: “When Marion Maréchal-Le Pen lets rip, her aunt reads her the riot act but reaps the fruits of the provocation without retracting.”